Castille has never travelled farther east than Hyskland and the world beyond it is strange as the tongues grow stranger. He has navigated it thus far, past the grand Hysklander cities and through to the forests where Hyskland’s eastern border lies, densely populated by trees and cautiously quiet in the growing night. He hasn’t dared look back since he left his homeland of Gaula, not since the first inklings of enemies within his order emerged from the whispers of the church. Occasionally, as his exhaustion gets the better of him, the mortal world fades from his vision and he can see into the astral realm beyond, its demons waiting for an opportunity to cross over. They seem to watch him, hungry, in their true forms of shadow and ash. They’re not my business, he tells himself. I am a hunter no more.
This is a lie. He knows, deep down, that he has already made the Oath; the glimpses into the astral realm prove it, thanks to the angel that thrums against his blood and his soul. His brooch, the physical embodiment of his Oath, rests in his breast pocket, hidden away but kept close to his body. It’s a reminder that he once dedicated himself to the Hunter Order, that he bound his life to an angel; its magic runs through his veins brighter and more stark than his own. It’s hard for him to forget—any other angel would not have put such a target on his back—but he made his choice long ago, when he believed in a holy life within the clergy.
The churches in the forests between Hyskland and Vrolen are far and few between. He’s largely avoided them, partly out of spite, partly out of distrust; the gods only knew what sort of men lay within their blackened spires. The clergy are not above greed. So when he passes one, its wooden frame covered in protection runes made of animal bone, he rides on past to ensure his distance once the sun rises. He’ll have to stop and hunt in the day, despite his desire to continue travelling at night. He isn’t sure where he’s going. He just knows he wants away.
Away for Castille means many things. He has not deserted the Order, he is simply away. His wife is not missing, she is away. He’s not lost either, no. He’s away.
Perhaps these too are lies he tells himself. Castille isn’t too keen to dwell.
He rests once he decides the church is far enough behind him, dismounting his horse and setting to work on a campground. He unsheathes his sword in the dwindling darkness of night, carving into the forest floor a series of protection runes against whatever else may dwell here. He needs only a few hours of rest, he tells himself as he unpacks his canvas tarp and drapes it over his makeshift campsite. Only a few hours of rest before midday and he can continue on. There is nowhere in particular he plans to go. Away, he thinks, as though it negates his aimless wandering. Away is a goal, is it not?
Midday comes too quickly but Castille is on his feet, destroying the runes around his campground and mounting his horse once more. His head buzzes with hunger and a lack of sleep, and his vision blurs the realms again. Briefly, the warmth of Hysklandish summer disappears to give way to frightening cold, the sun muted to grey and the shadows around him emerge in shapes hungry for his flesh. In the greys and blacks of the astral realm, he sees another pale fleshy thing, one hand clutching a rifle and the other a saber. He is young; small under torn furs and leathers. Castille catches the man’s wide eyes and his almost-bluing fingers before Castille blinks and the astral realm fades back into the mortal.
With a sigh, Castille dismounts his horse, pats her on the neck, and reaches for his sword. “For fuck’s sake,” he mutters as he slices the air with his blade, channeling the thrum of magic to tear into the veil of the realms. The magic of his world is something of a science to some, with rigor and experimentation and exploration. The power to traverse the realms is sought after for it’s difficult—though not impossible—to achieve and Castille had been blessed with that gift when he took the Oath. He’s bypassed the need for the rigor and exploration, knowing unfortunately well that curiosity into the unknown is largely too dangerous to pursue. Unfortunately still, science seems to follow curiosity to the ends of the earth itself, and Castille certainly had the suspicion that not all scholars were necessarily smart.
He steps into the rift as soon as he opens it and closes it immediately behind him, the cold hitting him like a wall. He may be no hunter, but leaving a rift between the astral realm and the mortal realm open too long was simply irresponsible. The world of the astral realm is tinged in red, echoing the mortal realm but speckled with darkness like a miasma. The shadows coalesce around him as the astrals hunger for the life and blood that’s stepped into their realm. He waves them off, lighting a flame in his hand. It burns strongly, scented of lavender and iron. Fire is one of the few magics he learned to master for himself, and one he’s able to summon even here, away from mortal magics. Castille throws the flame to the ground, a ring of fire surrounding him where he walks.
The man before him stumbles forward, hacking at the astrals that have clung to his skin. They feed on his blood, solidifying into recognizable forms seen in the mortal realm: beast-like and raw, held together by the thinnest of strings of their idea of life. They’re masses of mangled teeth and musculature and sinew.
Castille grimaces at the sight. “Idiot,” he mutters. He holds out a hand for the man before him, out into the cold beyond the heat of his fire. “Sprechen Sie gaulische?” asks Castille. His Hysklandish is far too poor to hold any conversation further.
The man takes his hand, cold as a corpse. “Yes,” he replies. “Thank you.”
A minor relief, Castille thinks as he pulls the man across the fire and cuts through the veil once more. He drags the man back with him through to the mortal realm, who collapses onto the warm summer grass. “I’m not sure what I’d do if you didn’t.”
“Leave me to die?” asks the man, releasing his weapons and closing his eyes. Castille catches the man’s accent, a lilt native to the Gaulish and Hysklandish borders. “How did you do that?”
“I specialized,” Castille lies, as he makes his way back to his mare. “Perhaps the church some kilometers west could help you from here.” He mounts his horse, looking down on the man still lying in the grass. He’s young, hardly more than a boy and Castille is sure he has the arrogance to go with it. “How long were you in there for?”
“I cannot say,” he replies. “What use do the astrals have for our concept of time?” He holds his hands above him, watching the color return to his fingers. “Scripture calls it both a place of damnation and of holiness, that our angels and demons are derived from the same aether just beyond our mortal reach. It took me many years to develop the magic to even enter their accursed realm. Perhaps it was madness that drove me to go. The astral realm was more than I could have possibly dreamed. And yet you did it so effortlessly! You pierced the veil between the mortal and the perverse. Tell me, please, how did you learn? Who taught you?”
“A dead man,” Castille mutters. Another lie. He has half a mind to leave the man here, to let him find his own way back to civilization, to leave the thought of him behind. “The scholars with that knowledge do not live for long.”
“No…. and I can see why.” The man sits up, forearms rested on his knees. “Imagine—I had gone in and had hardly thought of how I might return! The excitement overtook my preparation.”
Castille hums. Stupid scholars indeed.
“Nevertheless, I am fortunate you have found me,” the man continues. “I am Florian, allow me to aid you in your travels.”
Castille searches for an excuse. “I haven’t an extra horse,” he says finally. He doesn’t want a travel companion and he certainly does not want an idiot scholar who’s half-dead from his own stupidity.
“I can follow on foot,” replies Florian.
Castille sighs. “Go to the church, get some rest, let the monks look after you, and pray the gods forgive you for intruding on their sacred grounds.”
“Do you not fear for your soul, then?”
“No,” mutters Castille. “I never chose to seek passage into the astral realm.” This much was true. The angel he chose was entirely at random. He did not actively seek out one of the most sought-after angels among the Hunter Order. He looks over Florian, the cuts and bruising painting his skin in tones of reds, blues, and purples. He’s hardly in any shape to travel on his own.
The answer doesn’t seem to be enough for Florian. He frowns hard. “Then why–”
Castille cuts him off. “Why don’t I escort you back to the church? I’ll leave you there and you can take your rest in safety.”
Florian opens his mouth in protest again, eyeing Castille and the entire situation over. “Very well,” he replies, rising to his feet. “Perhaps once I am well you may consider me to accompany you on your journey.”
“I haven’t much of a journey, I’m afraid,” mutters Castille. “We’ll travel until there is food and then we’ll travel again. It has been too long since I’ve eaten anything.”
Castille can feel his stomach’s growl through his clothes. The forest has been largely quiet, with only Florian’s chatter to fill the air though Castille hasn’t been listening to the bulk of it. Florian’s hardly more than a boy, so freshly out of the academia he speaks of. Castille stops his mare and dismounts, much to Florian’s surprise. There’s a rustle in the underbrush, nothing large but by the gods is he starving. Castille shoves his horse’s reins into Florian’s hands, not trusting him to be useful on this endeavor. “Stay here,” says Castille.
“Surely you’ll allow me to help you hunt,” says Florian, tinged with offense.
“No,” Castille mutters.
“I am a magician. I’m hardly useless.”
Castille, with a slight roll of his eyes, reaches into his saddlebags and fishes out his hunting bow. His stomach rumbles again, the churning inside his belly feeling for substance, and he knocks an arrow in preparation. He really does wish he were alone again. Florian, behind him, mutters under his breath.
“You are also a magician—what are you doing with that?”
More rustling from the underbrush. Castille eyes the movement in the flowers and leaves, searching for some fleeting brown in a mess of green. Food.
He has better things to do than to occupy himself with Florian’s chitter.
Castille frowns as he draws his bow and aims his arrow. Perhaps that’s another lie, too. What exactly is he doing anyway? He has no destination in mind, no particular place anymore to call home. Even now the churches he once considered safehouses are filled with more potential traitors than benevolent clergy. Or rather, that’s what he suspects.
In the underbrush, he spies a rabbit; fat, brown, and awfully content with its life. It prods away at a patch of clover, leaves stuffing the rabbit’s mouth. Food for it, food for him. It was about time that he finally had a meal.
A ball of berry-scented flames knocks the arrow out of Castille’s fingers, flying far off its target and disappearing into the forest. He straightens himself and groans, arms falling to his sides as the grass surrounding the rabbit go up in flames. For fuck’s sake.
Florian, behind him, laughs triumphantly. Without looking back, Castille pulls out a new arrow with a grimace, walking toward the patch of grass and inspecting their prey. He catches it barely alive and still burning, poor thing. He drives the arrowhead through the rabbit’s neck, flames licking at his arms before pulling it—finally dead—out into the open. Gods he wishes he were alone again.
He catches Florian grinning, blue eyes bright with excitement. “Do you hunt?” asks Castille.
There’s a beat of silence as Florian processes Castille’s glare. His grin fades away slowly. “Not for food,” he replies.
Castille hums. Florian hunts for sport, he thinks. Just like the other wealthy, naive academic-types. “Give your prey a quick death,” says Castille, shoving the rabbit into Florian’s hands. “That one’s yours. I’m finding my own. And take care of this fire.” He jerks his thumb in the direction of the forest that’s still in flames. The fire crackles away—bright and warm even in the late-afternoon light—smelling strongly of pine and cedar and Florian’s berry-scented magic.
“I’ve never cleaned a rabbit before,” Florian protests, the charred fur smudging off onto his skin.
“You’ll learn.”
Castille finds two ducks on his own, far away from the burning forest, and returns to find Florian struggling still to clean his rabbit. Somehow, he’s produced a glass jar where he’s stuffed the internal organs of the rabbit. It sits unlabeled next to Florian’s prey, the rabbit mangled and stiff. Castille has half a mind to give Florian his other duck, but he decides to keep them both. He’ll need the extra eventually.
Florian catches Castille’s eye. “For magic,” he says, tapping the lid of the blood-smudged jar with an equally bloody finger.
“Is that what you used? Arunic magic?” asks Castille. “To enter the astral realm.”
“It was a combination of the two,” Florian replies with a smile. “It took me years to discover the perfect ratios of each; a marriage of runic magic and sacrifice necessary to tear through the veil of our realms. There were many failed attempts. But as you can imagine, animal blood was hardly a sufficient sacrifice to enter such a mythical place.”
Castille narrows his eyes. “Human blood?”
“My own, don’t worry,” says Florian, waving his hand in dismissal. He stops is mid-air, wagging his pinky finger for Castille to see. He hadn’t noticed it before, but there it was—Florian is missing the part of his finger from the last joint up, and Castille feels his stomach churn from both hunger and horror.
“You would mutilate yourself for discovery?”
“A small sacrifice, I think.” He returns to the charred rabbit that sits in front of him. “Well worth it.” Florian waves his hand in dismissal and Castille’s eyes linger in unease. “But to see that you can do it so effortlessly,” Florian continues. “Both entering and leaving—please, you must tell me. You see, upon my arrival I discovered that my magic was insufficient to exit the astral realm. I should have known, perhaps, that the astrals would feed on my sacrifice before magic could take place. I was fortunate you could find me.”
“Perhaps the church can aid you with that too,” says Castille, unable to look away from the shortened finger. “Your sanity may be suffering from all that blood magic of yours.”
“All magic is blood magic, my friend. Gods, am I only now realizing I don’t know your name?” Florian’s face lights up again, at the thought of this new challenge now placed before him. “Tell me. You have much to divulge.”
Castille, surrounded by plucked feathers and starving still, starts a fire pit and a flame. The sun’s started to set below the tree-line and the shadows of the forest have drawn long against the dark-green forest floor and dusty purple-red sky. “I have nothing to divulge,” he says, resting his birds over the flames and rising to his feet. “We’ll make camp here and leave first thing in the morning.”
Florian frowns like a disappointed child, and he crawls forward to lay his already half-cooked rabbit next to the ducks on the pit. He wraps his furs around himself and sits across the fire from Castille, who suspects that this night is not done with him yet. But Castille pushes the thought aside, unsheathes his sword and draws protection runes around their campsite. He’ll eat, sleep, and be rid of Florian as soon as possible. Gods, he hopes this will be over soon. All he wants is to wander the world alone again.
Sleep hits him hard once the food settles in his stomach, and the exhaustion overtakes his will to keep an eye on Florian. He realizes then, half-asleep, that he would not have minded the company had it been anyone less grating. He misses his wife (although she herself is not missing, she is away, he reminds himself) and he’s longed for someone to at least share the days as they passed in his journey. Anyone except Florian. The talkative bastard is the last person he’d want as a travel companion. He frowns at the thought of the other mage cutting off his own finger; what else would he do if the temptation grew strong enough? What sort of madman is willing to mutilate himself for entry into the astral realm?
Castille pries his eyes open once more, looking over Florian in the fading light of the fire. The blood staining his skin looks like mud in the dim light; he’s healed his wounds and washed nothing off. Not that they’ve passed anywhere to do so. Not that Castille would have stopped to let him, either. Perhaps that wasn’t entirely true. Florian has a pathetic air about him despite the strength of his youth. He sits by the fire with his torn furs wrapped tightly around him and clasped beneath his chin, eyes trained intently on the ground before him. A scholar lost in an adventure of his own making. Castille supposes that isn’t much different than his own situation; he chose to be away and to travel on his own. And while he feels he has not complained much about the consequences of his actions, he couldn’t deny that they were exactly that.
Castille drifts off to sleep to the sound of Florian muttering to himself, just barely audible over the sound of the crackling fire.
“It was so cold,” he says. “So very cold…. I will have to reconsider my attire…”
Castille awakes to the heat of the rising sun. It bears down on his face, the light visible through his still-closed eyes. There’s a moment of peace, where he can lay blank to the world and himself, taking in the warmth of the morning and the softness of the grass. And then he realizes the rustle of the trees are not in fact rustling trees, and that the warmth he feels on his skin is not of the summer sunrise. The smoke gives it away first.
Florian stands amidst the flames that surround their camp, protected some by the fading protection runes that are etched into the grounds beneath them. He has made away with his furs, which now sit burning at the edge of the clearing, revealing the torn leather armor he wears beneath it. His sword is sheathed and hanging at his hip while he carries a dagger in his right hand, the tip still dripping with blood. He is entranced more than he is panicked. “I suppose I got carried away with lighting the morning fire,” he says.
Castille scrambles to his feet just as the fire flickers close to his hair. He reaches for his sword, pulling it free of its scabbard and pointing it to Florian. He smells the wafting scent of Florian’s berry flames. “This is your doing? You set the forest on fire?” I thought you were a scholar, Castille thinks with a grimace. “Are you that incompetent?”
“I entered the astral realm with my own magic,” Florian protests. “I am far from incompetent. Besides, this is hardly the entire forest. All will be well once we are finished here. Do not worry, Castille.”
Castille’s stomach drops. When did he learn his name? He tightens his grip on his sword, narrows his eyes at Florian.
The mage before him continues, waving his dagger in the air. His blood trails behind it, tracing the path of his dagger’s tip. “Auclair Élois Florence Castille,” says Florian, savoring each syllable of Castille’s full name. The edges of his mouth curl in a smile. “I expected you to be more charitable to company. How lonely it must be for you to be travelling alone so aimlessly in this world.”
Castille, swallowing his suspicions, lowers his sword and points with his empty hand in the direction of the church. “You are not well,” he says. “Your time in the astral realm has compromised you.” He watches Florian’s face drop in disappointment.
“Surely you aren’t this stupid. Surely the great Angel of the Abyss chose a formidable hunter as its host.”
Castille groans as the last of his hopes that Florian was simply a stupid academic falls through the cracks. No, in his heart Castille knows what he is; he’s seen it before. The man before him is a hunter by training, not yet taken the Oath, and hoping to take Castille’s for his own. “You tracked me here? Travelled into the astral realm with no means of getting out? You cut off a finger!” He considers the weight of his sword, considers taking this fight out of the mortal world. “Am I truly worth risking your own life for that?”
The fire around them burns a little brighter and Castille’s hand itches to change the grounds on which this is fought. But leaving Florian in the astral realm would kill him and he isn’t entirely sure he’s prepared to be responsible for that. Florian, jabbing a dagger in Castille’s direction, continues: “I learned of your angel’s power when I was researching for my own Oath. Perhaps I am being tempted beyond my duties as a hunter, but would it not be so simple to tear the veil between our realms and send those wretched demons back from whence they came? Must we resort to risking our own lives to dispel them from our realm? You could be a banisher of demons, a messiah like the First of Hunters Serei himself. Yet, when I came in search of you, to learn of the great host of the Angel of the Abyss, I learned that you had deserted the Order. That you, Auclair Castille, have abandoned your holy duty to this world.”
“Put out this fire, Florian,” says Castille, grimacing. He feels certain Florian isn’t here to convince him to return to his duties in the Order of Gaula. “Or are my suspicions correct and you intend to kill me?”
The fire around them swirls between the trees, entering through where Florian’s fur has destroyed the protection runes surrounding the campground. And then it slithers, flickering from bright reds to deep black flames; a serpent made of magic Castille did not know mages could conjure. In the astral realm, he can see the shadows forming around the serpent, latching onto the flames to pull into the mortal world. He looks to Florian again, mouth open with a question.
“I specialized,” Florian replies with a grin, reading Castille’s expression. “Demons are easier to coax into our realm than they are to return them, after all. One simply needs to know the kind of sacrifice they crave.” He raises his left hand, fingers bloodied but healing.
Castille watches the fire serpent approach, and he eyes its trajectory between him and Florian. Demons have no loyalties, and while this one will likely attack him in either realm, Castille is unsure if it will ignore Florian.
The berry scent of Florian’s fire fades away to the stench of decay from the demon itself. It reaches forward with a molten limb, claws digging into the ground.
Castille feels a tug at the back of his soul. From somewhere, far away and buried deep, the angel in his body remerges to advise. It does not speak. Instead, it raises Castille’s arm and suggests, through their bond, to reach beyond the abyss.
Florian opens his mouth to protest, eyes widening as a rift opens between them. The serpent, at their feet, flares its black fire onto the grounds as it steadily enters the astral realm. “Don’t you dare run,” Florian mutters.
Castille senses his angel’s intent. The rift grows beyond a door into the astral realm, into a bubble encompassing both he and Florian and the demons on the other side. The serpent still spits its flames in the cold of the unknown. It turns onto Castille, jutting forward in tendrils of shadow.
But Castille waits, hand steady on the hilt of his sword.
Around them, the shadows gather, curious and bloodthirsty. They swirl at their feet, ebbing in waves. Castille stands his ground as he watches Florian ignite the blood on his hands, drenching the air in flames. The shadows around him shrink away from the light. “You’re here with me,” says Castille. “And that.” He jabs a finger at the serpent demon. “And whatever else comes our way.”
“All you’ve proven to me, Castille, is that you are a coward.” Florian spits the word with a grimace. “A coward unworthy of holding the immense amount of power you’ve been granted. The Angel of the Abyss has been wasted on you—all of its power! The blessing that the gods bestowed upon you when you took the Hunter’s Oath. Why? Why did the gods choose you?”
The serpent demon leaps before Castille can respond. He staggers backward, just shy of the cold black flames that lick at his face and feet before it turns its body and flares at Florian. The shadows around them grow denser, crawling up their legs. Castille grits his teeth through the cold of their grip as it cuts through his flesh.
Florian tries to set his flames brighter, arms flailing as he attempts to harness the magic that obeys his blood in the mortal realm. But the cold here is too strong. Their mortal magic is not so obedient in the land of the astrals. Castille’s hand itches to leave this realm.
Yet he still waits for Florian, who’s fallen back onto himself; his fire dwindling around him. “Forget this,” says Castille. “All of it.”
Florian rises to his feet—and leaps. He tries to jump past the serpent at Castille, though its bite nips him in the ankles and knocks him onto the ground. It catches his foot in its jaw before Florian can stand.
Castille—instinctively—reaches forward. He calls to close the abyss, arm outstretched to pull Florian back to the mortal realm. He’s angry with himself but more angry at Florian, whose eyes widen in desperation as he’s pulled away into eternal winter. Castille keeps the rift open just long enough to see Florian flail like a dying bird, his fingers just barely reaching Castille and a scream caught in his throat as the shadows devour him entirely.
The Angel of the Abyss closes the rift.
And Castille sits in the summer grass of a Hysklandish forest all alone. The fire around him dwindles away; the berry scent of Florian’s magic fading into the wind.
He looks past the mortal realm in search of remains but he sees nothing but shadows, dispersing amongst themselves. Castille’s head spins, heart pounding in his throat, blood rushing in his ears. Despite the gentle sway of the trees, the singing birds, and the rustle of the underbrush, it’s quiet.
Castille struggles to bring himself to his feet, and he finds himself leaning against a tree with a pit in his stomach and a churning nausea in his throat. He wonders, briefly, what happens to a dead mortal’s body in the land of astrals, wonders what that death is like. He banishes the thought to the shadow of his heart, close to his soul though he wishes it weren’t. His hand shakes, and he isn’t sure how long it takes before he regains his composure, but the world sways a little as he realizes he’s alone again.
| Ashley Deng is a Canadian-born Chinese-Jamaican author of dark fantasy and horror. She holds a BSc in biochemistry, specializing her studies toward making accessible the often-cryptic world of science and medicine. When not writing, she is a hobbyist medical/scientific illustrator and spends her spare time overthinking society and culture. Her work has appeared at Nightmare Magazine, Fireside Magazine, Augur Magazine, and others. Her climate horror novella, DEHISCENT, is available from Tenebrous Press. You can find her at ashedeng.ca or on various social media as @ashesandmochi and @baroqueintentions. |  |